Chapters (33)
Chastity had enough and stumbled to her feet, finding her way to Graham’s chest of drawers under one of his daddy’s old posters for Jazz Fest ’89. His goddamn dad who lived in Atlanta but kept a house in New Orleans for his old folks’ parties and for his son to kick back and have some personal time to himself. Daddies could be so fucking stupid.
She found Graham’s phone where he’d left it. Stashing it away from his so-called friends while he slept. She looked back to see him snoring in the twisted sheets, his scabbed-over arm dangling loose and free off the mattress.
She dialed the number, listening to it ring and ring until she heard the right voice.
“Daddy?” Chastity said. “I’m scared. Will you help me?”
* * *
Johnny Stagg was helping with the midnight countdown at the Rebel when his phone rang with a Fayetteville area code. He nodded to Miss Nadine and Midnight Man to give him a little privacy and picked up the handset, leaning back into his office chair. “Johnny Stagg speaking.”
“Mr. Stagg, this is Vince Bloodgood over in Arkansas,” he said. “I sure I hope I didn’t wake you or your family at this ungodly hour.”
“No, sir,” Stagg said. “I was just about to drink a warm glass of milk and hit the hay. You caught me just in time.”
“I’ve been thinking.”
“Yes, sir.”
“About what you and me talked about,” Bloodgood said. “Does that offer still stand?”
“My word is gold, Mr. Bloodgood,” Stagg said. “Ask anybody.”
“I just want Chastity back,” he said. “These Federal folks keep on dicking ’round. Now they’re saying Chastity might’ve been involved in a killing down in Shreveport. My little baby? Some marshal woman called me up earlier and I swear to you she talked as direct and dirty as a goddamn man. How you like that?”
“If it’s the same marshal I’m thinking on, she’s a real nasty woman.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well,” Stagg said, leaning back into his highbacked chair, holding the handset, the spiral cord stretched across his old metal desk. “What can I do you for?”
“My baby,” Bloodgood said. “My sweet little Chastity is being held by that country trash and some junkies down in New Orleans. Can you please help me?”
“You don’t want to work with them Federal folks?”
“I only want justice done,” Bloodgood said.
Stagg didn’t say a word, the office windowless and quiet, a hum of warm air coming in from the ceiling. He let Bloodgood’s words just hang in there for a moment, giving them meaning and weight.
“You understand, Mr. Stagg?”
“Yes, sir,” Stagg said. “I most surely do. I’ll get my best men right on it. Sharpest two fellas I’ve ever met. Now what’s that address down in the Big Easy?”